


Catch Me, You Can

by 994527



Category: MotoGP RPF, Motorcycling RPF
Genre: Fluff, Injury, Life changing moments, M/M, Romantic Gestures, True Love, crash, not sure what else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1955496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/994527/pseuds/994527
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani has never had luck on his side, and Marc always has.</p><p>But that changes when Dani comes round the corner and sees his sister Honda in the gravel. Luck has switched sides.</p><p>“326. Do you think you’ll all catch me by Cheste?”</p><p><i>You’re still thinking about that.</i> Dani studied his face and clenched his teeth. <i>You still want to win. One more time.</i> “I love you.”</p><p>“I love you too. So…do you think?"</p><p>“I think we will, yeah.”</p><p>“Fuck.” Marc smiled and sighed sadly. “Well then at least I got the full set. 125, Moto2, MotoGP. Really wanted to have a go at beating 9 though.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch Me, You Can

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit superstitious so although I wrote it, wasn't sure about posting it...but then I thought that's silly, so I posted it. Because the Marquez attitude hasn't got time for superstition. ;) It was just the biggest thing I could imagine given the dynamic/record with luck and heartbreakingly romantic. (For me, anyway!)
> 
> Let me know what you think, always always appreciated very very much :)
> 
> This is not the new Dani/Marc project: this is a one off. ;)
> 
> For my superstition, let me say: this is and will forever be a work of complete fiction.

They’d been together for a long time before the accident happened. Nobody knew; they kept it quiet. But what had started out as teammates and turned into rivals had then suddenly changed over the winter of 2013, and by the time Marc had his first crash of the 2014 campaign, in Rufea, Dani felt the news hit him like a brick wall, because it wasn’t his teammate or his friend or even his boyfriend, it was _Marc_ , and the amount of emotions, memories and feelings wrapped up in that one word was enough to last Dani a lifetime of trying to unravel them; a lifetime he intended to spend doing just that.

But despite that crash, the start of the season had been incredible for the cerverina, and Dani had suffered with his arm and surgery. Marc, for his part, had never lauded it over him – he was quite good at being rightfully proud of himself whilst also keeping the respect and encouragement there for Dani. Which wasn’t difficult, because Marc truly respected him, and he could feel that from Day 1; regardless of what their ‘relationship’ had turned out to be, and just being around his teammate was usually enough to make Dani feel 4 ft taller.

The older HRC rider was first on the scene. Normally, how they felt about each other and how they treated each other on track never got tangled; it was easy to keep them separate. On track, they were 93 and 26, not Marc and Dani. But this time, when he came round the corner, he knew it was different. 

Marc’s Honda was in the gravel; that was what he saw first. And he stopped, almost immediately, and not because he was being told to; because he thought he had to. Something about it just said _stop._ He saw his teammate once he’d pulled off the line, over near the barrier, crowd of marshals around him, and felt some sort of horrible _knowing_ start to creep up his spine. He knew he shouldn’t be there, because he knew people would ask questions about it, but he found himself giving the bike to a marshal and walking slowly but purposefully towards the group, not caring.

_Please._

*

_“But why did you go over?”_

_“Because I knew it was bad.”_

_“That’s not the normal behaviour of a teammate…”_

_“He’s not just my teammate, Livio. He’s the person I love most in the world.”_

He’d said it because it was true, and because the team weren’t going to focus on what was between their riders; they were going to focus on what was between Marc and recovery, which was a lot. 

_“What?!”_

_“Yeah, you would have found out anyway, especially now. Who do you think has been looking after him?”_

_“His family. That’s what he said.”_

_“That’s true. But nowadays that means me. We’re in a relationship. A serious one. The only reason I’m not wearing a ring is because we live in Switzerland.”_

*

Marc was told at 10.36am that he would never be able to ride again. He could walk and live and do most things no trouble, carefully, but he wouldn’t ride a bike, certainly not competitively. He would be out the wheelchair in a couple of weeks. Dani went with him, he’d stopped caring about the nudges and whispers surrounding the whole thing, and Marc wouldn’t go anywhere without him. And it took him 3 or 4 hours of sitting there in patient silence before Marc said anything, and what he said made Dani explode more than anything else he was expecting.

“326. Do you think you’ll all catch me by Cheste?”

Dani stared at him mutely, punched a hole in the wall and then started crying uncontrollably, way before Marc did, because it hadn’t sunk in for the younger rider. For Dani, it was like one moment that explained everything he loved about him, and explained everything about him, and made it all seem that much more unfair. _And what a moment to choose._

 _You’re still thinking about that._ Dani studied his face and clenched his teeth. _You still want to win. One more time._ “I love you.”

“I love you too. So…do you think?”

“I think we will, yeah.”

“Fuck.” Marc smiled and sighed. “Well then at least I got the full set. 125, Moto2, MotoGP. Really wanted to have a go at beating 9 though.”

Dani couldn’t really find a response to that, except to know that his breakdown wasn’t going to help and trying to pull himself together. “It hasn’t sunk in.”

“No. I know.” Marc pulled his teammate down to kiss him and smiled, sadly. “It will do soon. But at least I have my old Sepang plan. And you.”

“Sepang plan?”

“Five months of seeing double and you think I didn’t have a plan for what to do with my life if I couldn’t ride?”

 _Never really considered that._ “Oh. So..?”

“So Alex just got a new manager…and I want to open a bar.”

 _’It will do soon’._ “Right.”

"No response to the other part?"

"About me? You have me. Always." He sat down next to him and wound their fingers together. "You'll have me until you're having to plan my murder to get some peace when we're grey and embarrassing. I promise."

Marc grinned at that, took another deep breath, and squeezed his hand. "Well then...I guess I won the biggest thing, anyway."

 _No._ Dani bit his lip to try and hold it all in and squeezed back. _I did that._

*

By the time they got to Cheste, it was Lorenzo vs Pedrosa vs Marquez for the title. It was raining. Marc wasn’t riding and hadn’t been riding, and he wouldn’t ride again, and he was sat in Dani’s garage watching. But if neither of the other two won the race, he would still be champion. At the first corner, Lorenzo got taken down.

Dani was in a daze until he seemed to wake up in the lead on lap 15, suddenly all senses heightened and everything sinking in, pit board saying Ros +4.4, making everything suddenly achievable. The first few laps he’d felt like he imagined Casey used to feel like in the rain: everything was just doing what he was wanting it to, and the gap was increasing and increasing.

 _This year the luck was mine. After 9 years, the luck was mine._ He thought about that for a few laps, thought about seeing _Dani Pedrosa_ carved on the trophy, about everything coming true. _Nine years, and it’s going to happen._ He got to the final 5 laps, Ros +8.1, and ticked each one off.

By Turn 12 on the final lap, he was grinning uncontrollably in his helmet, content that luck had given him a good hand, content that he’d beaten some of the best in the world consistently during the season, content he was the guy who could cross the line first, for the first time. Content that it didn’t matter anymore what was written where, or who said what. It never really had, but now the idea of it was almost laughable. _I could have done it. And that’s enough._

Turn 13 found him slowing slightly, commentators mentioning it, no one worried since all he had left was one corner: no one else on the track could win it, and he wasn’t going to fall off, everyone knew that. By the time he was nearing the tricky apex of 14, he was doing 20km/h and he could imagine the faces around him starting to panic. _Don’t panic._

He went round the corner, and he made sure to check over his shoulder that Valentino wasn’t near him, and he wasn’t, before pulling over to the left hand side of the track and stopping. The crowd was going crazy. Yellow appeared on the horizon.

He could see the team gesticulating in the distance, frantic and wondering what had happened, watching Dani pull off one glove and then the other, calmly placing them on the tank and then leaning against the wall to watch Valentino come round the corner and take the victory.

He took a deep breath as the Italian did just that, content to feel no twinge of regret as he watched it happen, and looked back down to the team, readying himself for whatever was coming.

 _Have you figured it out yet?_

He looked up at the screen and nodded as they showed the Repsol Honda garage, and Marc sat there, head in his hands, realising exactly what it was.

_At least you have._


End file.
